The Park School of Buffalo Foundation Inc

The Park School of Buffalo is Western New York’s only co-ed, PreK - Grade 12 school. For 113 years, Park has authentically equipped its students with the academic skills, social confidence and ethical vision to become problem solvers who are dedicated to making the world a better place. Learn all about our 34-acre campus at https://theparkschool.org.

THE ISSUE: The Park School does not have an adequate space on campus where the entirety of the students and faculty can gather for celebrations, theater, choral and band performances and visual arts exhibitions. Park also does not have space to host community-wide education events, concerts and arts exhibitions. The school’s existing black box theater only seats 100, necessitating up to six performances of the school’s plays and musicals to accommodate audience demand leaving faculty and students exhausted. The school’s existing facilities are inadequate to professionally host Park’s arts-related regional and state-wide relationships. Park’s performing arts faculty has the capacity to offer a summer theater camp which would net the school an annual six-figure income stream, but it lacks the facility to move ahead. In addition, the school can only accommodate a small audience when visiting authors and speakers appear at the school.

THEATER & ART GALLERY: The arts have always resided at the core of The Park School of Buffalo’s program. In 2024-25, over 60% of the school’s student body participated in the cast of the school musical. Park students take drama, music, pottery, painting, woodworking, media arts, and drawing throughout their Lower, Middle and Upper School careers, and our graduates routinely are accepted into the best visual and performing art colleges in the country. Park has entered into strategic partnerships with several local and state-wide arts organizations, and has hosted an artist-in-residence over the last decade.

FINANCIAL EDUCATION: It's no surprise that financial learning in primary education schools is limited due to lack of various resources. A 2023 study shows that when teens receive financial literacy lessons in school, they manage their money more effectively well into adulthood. In fact, the effects on students’ financial well-being are detectable over a decade after graduation. A study by the nonprofit National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE) reveals strong public support for teaching financial literacy in schools. A nationwide opinion poll found that 88% of Americans think their state should require a semester- or year-long personal finance course for high school graduation, with 80% of adults wishing they were required to take such a course during their high school years.

Although Park currently provides presentations for its students about taxes, early financial planning, entrepreneurship and money management, these are one-time voluntary visits, not courses, and are held in front of a small audience due to capacity restraints. Knowing that it is important for students to gain knowledge, experience, and have resources readily available to them about financial information and planning, Chris Naugle is excited to offer both public and private financial education events in the new Naugle Hall for Performing & Visual Arts building. This aligns with Park's mission and experiential pedagogy: to engage the whole student in a diverse and creative community that nurtures the joy and responsibility of active learning in all, from our youngest learners to our graduates, who leave with the skills essential to college success and the confidence to serve and lead throughout their adult lives. Changemakers need to be both visionary and entrepreneurial. Structured financial literacy curricula is therefore critical to fulfilling Park’s mission.

SOLUTION: The plan is to construct a 19,000 square foot, 400-seat performing and visual arts center located on the Park Circle that includes an art gallery; a media arts center; and band, chorus and dramatic arts rooms as well as a main stage. This space will be large enough to house whole school assemblies, visiting speakers, public performances and events, commencement, and the Park fall play and spring musical.